I haven’t made anything ceramic since my primary school days of creating coil pots and other things I proudly presented to my mother. Since I’m not totally insane* I’ve decided that I’m not going to start by making plates, instead I’m starting with the decoration. This is probably motivated by the fact I’m a little girlie and I want pretty things with a minimum of effort. It’s also wise to concentrate on developing one skill at a time. That and I don’t have the equipment, though I suspect I could borrow my grandfathers old stuff anytime I liked.
I happen to have a place called Glaze It (http://www.glazeit.com.au/) just down the road. I wheeze my way past their shop every other morning on my bi-daily jog so I’ve been contemplating this for some time. Run by a very nice couple, they provide pottery of various forms and enamel paints and you create your master piece. While a majority of their customers produce items reminiscent of my coil pots, there are also some very talented artists who drop by monthly to make amazing things. They provide 29 different colours (30 if you include white which is naked plate) and tell you that to get a strong colour you need three layers of paint, one will look like watercolour and two just looks splotchy. You paint your item, hand it over for firing and come back in a week for your beautiful item.
So, the first few items are going to be working on my skill with a paintbrush (limited) and researching a lot more ceramic designs.
New words for my vocabulary:
Bisque: Pottery that has been fired buy not yet glazed. Also known as biscuit. Items are very hard yet still porous.
Greenware: Unfired pottery, typically air dried. Rather fragile.
*Really I’m not. I have a certificate that says so!
No comments:
Post a Comment